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My mother: Personal stories of full-spectrum lighting

My mother was an artist. She created award-winning ceramics, cuddly welcoming quilts, and sang like an angel. As her years of creating grew, she needed to take her work to the window to see colors.

She was also stubborn and did not like change. So … when I changed all her lights out to full Spectrum Bulbs, she complained that I was wasting her good bulbs. I put them into her bulb drawer.

Fast forward. She called. "Kay, your bulbs burned out and I put the old bulbs back in the lamps. I do not like them anymore. I need your bulbs. The colors look better when I paint and sewing is easier, too, with those natural lights."

Note: Many people use the words "natural lights," "daylight," or "full-spectrum." Those terms do not have an agreed definition. When I use those words, I mean a light that is 90-percent or more the color of natural sunlight. I also use "California-compliant." The sun creates light that reflects in many colors, which is a term called Kelvin and expressed with numbers such as 27K or 50K.

For LED bulbs, read the box to learn the color of the light. It will be given in Kelvins and written; example 6500K or 65K, which used to be the definition of daylight. On LED bulbs, daylight might be listed as Kelvins between 40K, to 65K.